


eventually

by itsmylifekay



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve-centric, mentions of all the other avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:18:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2577977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmylifekay/pseuds/itsmylifekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They should’ve seen it coming.<br/>They’d been warned about what could happen, what should be happening, what in all likelihood was happening…but Steve had never given them any reason to worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eventually

 

 

They should’ve seen it coming.

They’d been warned about what could happen, what _should_ be happening, what in all likelihood _was_ happening…but Steve had never given them any reason to worry. Had carried out his patriotic duties with a photo-ready smile on his face even when the rest of them wanted to fall face first into bed and tell the rest of the world where to shove it.

And Steve was _Captain America_ : strong and immovable and larger than life, a legacy from history suddenly right before their eyes.

(Looking back, it’s a testament to Steve’s stubbornness that they missed it for so long. Or maybe his upbringing, life in the forties making sharing emotional struggles unthinkable.)

Either way, they should’ve seen it coming.

They should have expected the way Steve slowly started to break down. Not in the obvious ways like anyone else, of course, but in subtle ways that even the serum couldn’t hide. There weren’t any bags under his eyes, but instead a dullness to his gaze that only worsened as weeks passed by. His gate became slower, his smiles wider, and the sparkling aura of _Captain America_ that had always permeated the area around him began to lose some of its shine.

Needless to say, they _eventually_ noticed.

They noticed and wasted no time in asking if Steve was okay, how they could help, what they could do. But Steve brushed them off, smiled and told them he was fine.

(It wasn’t long before they realized Steve smiled to hide just about every emotion in the book. That it was a default setting more than an actual expression.)

It wasn’t long after that discovery that they realized Steve wasn’t sleeping.

And while no one approved of Tony’s methods, they were all secretly grateful for the monitoring Jarvis provided. Because apparently, Steve hadn’t slept through the night since he first thawed out. He’d never screamed, never yelled, never thrashed... He would just wake up, walk out onto the balcony, and ask Jarvis for the date.

And suddenly it hit them, just what Steve had gone through— the experience of closing your eyes in one century and opening them in another; how, in the perceived blink of an eye, Steve had traveled decades in time.

Every time the man went to sleep, it was with the niggling possibility of that happening all over again lurking in the back of his mind.

(They agreed it was a miracle Steve even tried to sleep at all, that he was an idiot for hiding it, and that the Avengers had a new mission at hand: Protect Steve Rogers.)

That night, Sam slept over at the tower. He stayed up late with Steve to watch a movie, and then another, until Steve’s eyes were drooping and Sam was throwing an arm over him, guiding his head down onto a sturdy shoulder and holding him tight. It was the first time Steve slept through the night, tied to an anchor so he didn’t drift off through time.

The next morning, no one dared make a sound until Jarvis told them that Steve had woken up. It was half past ten and Tony had already missed a meeting, but their plan had worked. They could do this; they could give Steve the shoulder he’d needed since his best friend fell off that train.

And while it wasn’t practical for one of them to sleep with Steve every night (and they were under no illusions that Steve wouldn’t figure out their plan within a day or two), they came up with a system. Someone would stay up with Steve until he went to bed, and once Steve fell asleep Jarvis would play live audio feed from the other Avengers’ rooms— their soft, steady breathing enough to keep Steve under. And when morning came, someone would always be there to greet Steve as he woke up, with a text or a phone call or a knock at the door. Some little reminder that he hadn’t jumped time again, that everyone was still there.

So yeah, they should’ve seen it coming. They’re not arguing that. But at least they did figure it out eventually, and they’re doing everything in their power to pick up where Bucky left off: keeping Steve safe and secure and happy in every way they know how.

 

 

 

 


End file.
